The driving force behind everything, behind the curtain, behind the caption on Instagram, behind the corners cut in the kitchen of your favorite restaurant, behind why we’re heating up our world and can’t stop, behind why we hate one another, is money. We slightly lie to each other because we want, we need, and those of us who don’t want or need are swimming in competitiveness and greed—another kinda of insecurity.

We all lack. Increasing equality (not socialism, not communism), reducing inequality, would reduce both the greed and the fear.

This is why capitalism can’t quite get us there: though every commercial promises us happiness, none can offer it, not truly.

For contentment is the only form of true happiness. Ease. Resting in presence, in community. And all of that happens despite our need, our want, or our greed. And that is a sign that basic goodness is invincible. It’s still here, the blue sky behind the clouds, despite all our speed and greed and need and lack.

And yet: our earth is not invincible. The vulnerable are not invincible. Animals, and the poor—the single mom, the immigrant—anyone who can be taken advantage of, in capitalism, will.

So we must check and balance it: with voting, with the EPA, with unions. None of the solutions are perfect, or invincible. But they are good, if they harken us back to our inner goodness, to the place, right here, right now, right here!, right now!…that we’ve been trying to buy, to get to, to wrest away from others, all along.